Whether or not to circumcise a child is a question which presents itself to expectant fathers in the US. FatherMag.com receives e-mail from fathers asking about this issue, and child circumcision is widely discussed in Internet newsgroups and mailing lists.

It seems the US has recently discovered that it is the only Western country where child circumcision is still widely practiced, despite a rapid decline in recent years. The remaining American doctors who profit from penile reduction surgery are under attack from their colleagues in the medical profession who say that the basis for child circumcision was never medical, but social.

Now that the problems associated with child circumcision have become known, there is no longer any medical authority in the western world which advocates the circumcision of either male or female children.

In the US, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and The Pediatric Urologists Association all say the circumcision of infant children is unnecessary.

The Canadian Pediatric Society says, "...there is no medical indication for circumcision during the neonatal period." Circumcision Information Center

We will consider many of the historical medical arguments that were given, but one fact should be kept in mind: All of the medical arguments came after the fact, and were attempts to justify and continue a practice that came into being for reasons that were not medical in nature. Child circumcision in the United States was not begun on the basis of medical arguments. If a surgical practice was not started for medical reasons, then how did it become institutionalized?

The introduction of child circumcision in the 19th century was an attempt to prevent what was seen at the time as child sex abuse.